The QEUH did have more deaths but then it does have more beds so that doesn’t tell us much. When you divide the number of deaths by the number of beds you get a more useful ratio. It was 0.56 for the QEUH, the same as in Ayr, a bit higher than in Kilmarnock at 0.5 and lower than for the Royal in Glasgow at 0.67. How difficult was that for BBC Scotland’s several graduate staff? Needless to say such open transparent data is not available, as far as I can see, for hospital in England. Continue reading BBC Scotland fails P7 sums test on Covid deaths

We’re still beating round the bush as the terrible truth emerges that care services based on the profit motive care less and in a pandemic allow more to die. The above, from the BBC based on a Care Inspectorate report, takes us ever closer to confirming what I was sure of a year ago: The rate of residents dying from Covid was higher in larger care homes than smaller ones, new data reveals. Care Inspectorate figures show there were 2.1 virus deaths per 100 places in care homes with up to 20 beds. This contrasts with 12.6 deaths per 100 … Continue reading Large private sector care homes had six times more Covid deaths

From SNP Media: SNP Westminster Leader Ian Blackford MP has accused the Prime Minister of being “missing in action” when the country needed him most at the height of the covid crisis.  Speaking during Prime Minister’s Questions, Mr Blackford said thousands of people have paid the ultimate price for his failures. 128,000 people have died of coronavirus in the United Kingdom, and this morning, the Prime Minister’s most senior former adviser, Dominic Cummings, apologised on behalf of the UK government.  Commenting, Ian Blackford MP said:  “We know the Prime Minister has made a series of catastrophic errors throughout this crisis. … Continue reading ‘A circus act when we should have had a serious government’

In the Herald today: POLICE have received “a number of complaints” following a tweet from an SNP councillor which said “we hate the United Kingdom” in the aftermath of the Eurovision results. Rhiannon Spear, who represents the Greater Pollok ward in Glasgow and is the SNP’s national women’s convenor, has been accused of using “abhorrent language” after she wrote: “It’s ok Europe we hate the United Kingdom too. Love, Scotland.” Really? Get a life! ‘A number’ means Annie Wells and two of her pals. ‘Assessing’ means they are just about to toss them in the bin. From an admittedly small sample … Continue reading Poll: Majority of Scots think UK is abhorrent

Macwhirter returns to his favourite hobby, playing the creepy journalist uncle and self-proclaimed ‘sociopath’ (below) as he pursues the First Minister and by implication her ‘new best friend’ Prof Devi Sridhar, with the same old lies about her being no better than Johnson in terms of her pandemic response. I’ve done him before but I guess he doesn’t follow me and if he did, he still wouldn’t follow me. He writes today: I’ll get to the festering content but first, where is the evidence? Where are the quotes? He was just there. An older guy remembering things last year. Like … Continue reading Sociopath: Sturgeon ‘as bad as Johnson’

When Sir Prof John Curtice had trouble with the Covid helpline last week it was front page news. You’d think someone like him, who knows about statistical samples and significance, might have realised his single case might be too wee a sample but no, too important for that, he went straight to the media. Back in February, it was rabid Unionist, Ian Rankin, author of the Rubbish series, whose son was ‘forgotten’ by the vaccine programme. Several wrote to me in response praising the same helpline. Might the MSM have reported those? Today, we have another one, one, in the … Continue reading Undeclared Lib Dem attacks Covid helpline

In the Herald today: An SNP MP has been left red-faced after accusing the Scotland Office of spending money on social media advertising during the election period, when they did not do so. A leaked letter, obtained by the Herald, shows the UK Government department has confirmed to the Scottish Affairs committee that it spent nothing on social media adverts during the period of Purdah, despite being accused of doing so by the SNP’s Deidre Brock. I, of course, cannot ‘prove’ that the Scotland Office, staffed by Tories, have lied here but I bet I’m not the only one twitching. Remember this? … Continue reading Accused ‘proves’ innocence with ‘evidence’ they wrote themselves?

Readers will remember how in November 2020 Andrew Marr used the only 4 weeks in the whole pandemic when Covid deaths were higher in Scotland than in England to attack the Scottish Government’s performance. The death rate in Scotland has been the lowest in the UK for 4 weeks now but neither Marr nor any other broadcaster is interested: Only in Scotland has the death fallen to zero on several days but, again, no interest. Continue reading Andrew Marr no longer interested in Scotland’s Covid deaths

According to the Herald today ‘28,203 patients having spent 52 weeks or more on an NHS list.‘ https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/19326954.covid-scotland-scots-waiting-hospital-treatment-almost-double/ According to the Independent, on the 15th April ‘A total of 387,885 patients in England have been waiting 12 months or more for planned surgery and other routine treatments.’ https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/nhs-england-waiting-times-treatment-b1831810.html England has 10 times the population so, all things being equal might have been expected to have had 282 030 waiting for a year or more but had 387 885, 105 885 more. That’s 37% more. Continue reading Far fewer waiting more than a year in NHS Scotland